Red Mosquito

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:Man I love that book.

ready player one?

Simple Torture wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:Finished chapter 7 of Distant Star on the ride into work today.

Man! It's the chapter all about

Spoiler: show

What happened to Wieder after his photo showing and speculation about whether or not he's dead, etc

.

So. Fucking. Good. I love the sideways humor in this book. There's a sense of bizarre history to it. Like some it feels like it really happened, that it isn't fiction at all.

Bolaño writes about the coup in that way across a number of different pieces of fiction. I think he's borrowing the tone and mood of magical realism at points--he's able, as you've seen, to get a reaction of, "This can't be real, can it?" out of readers quite easily--and it all makes it feel like a fever dream or a waking nightmare. I just re-read a short story called "Detectives" (from the collection The Return) that deals with Arturo's imprisonment during the coup from a different perspective, and I think it'd make a nice companion piece to Distant Star.

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i have trouble at times getting into short stories

durdencommatyler wrote:

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i have trouble at times getting into short stories

I do too. But there are some that are outstanding. Have you read Tenth of December by George Saunders? That fucking book! Wow... That thing is outstanding.

durdencommatyler wrote:

Simple Torture wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:Finished chapter 7 of Distant Star on the ride into work today.

Man! It's the chapter all about

Spoiler: show

What happened to Wieder after his photo showing and speculation about whether or not he's dead, etc

.

So. Fucking. Good. I love the sideways humor in this book. There's a sense of bizarre history to it. Like some it feels like it really happened, that it isn't fiction at all.

Bolaño writes about the coup in that way across a number of different pieces of fiction. I think he's borrowing the tone and mood of magical realism at points--he's able, as you've seen, to get a reaction of, "This can't be real, can it?" out of readers quite easily--and it all makes it feel like a fever dream or a waking nightmare. I just re-read a short story called "Detectives" (from the collection The Return) that deals with Arturo's imprisonment during the coup from a different perspective, and I think it'd make a nice companion piece to Distant Star.

In general, do you like his short fiction?

durdencommatyler wrote:

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i have trouble at times getting into short stories

I do too. But there are some that are outstanding. Have you read Tenth of December by George Saunders? That fucking book! Wow... That thing is outstanding.

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i almost checked out ready player one...i suppose it's a ya novel, but has anybody here read it?

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i have trouble at times getting into short stories

bune wrote:

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i almost checked out ready player one...i suppose it's a ya novel, but has anybody here read it?

Yes. Are you a child of the 80's? It might be too schmaltzy for you or you might like it. Hell, Speilberg is working on the movie.

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i have trouble at times getting into short stories

Started the latest Stephen King collection of short stories "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams" and the very first story had me on edge. It was so tight and I loved how it didn't end the way I thought it would.

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i almost checked out ready player one...i suppose it's a ya novel, but has anybody here read it?

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

tragabigzanda wrote:

The Argonaut wrote:

lennytheweedwhacker wrote:i almost checked out ready player one...i suppose it's a ya novel, but has anybody here read it?

I had fun with it.

Did you take it to Chuck E. Cheese?

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

tragabigzanda wrote:I'd love to read it before the film comes out. What does RM think of Ready Player One? I'm hoping it's like Neal Stephenson's earlier works (Snow Crash, The Diamond Age).